In the tiny window between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon I managed to attend 19 art openings and three parties and go to one pub. I am broken and incapable of focusing either my thoughts or my eyeballs. The recovery process is ongoing. But while I can't have a nap, I do have my acute sense of accomplishment to keep me going. I have no regrets about this weekend; I grabbed every free beer and whisky cocktail that I could. It would have been impossible to do more. Here's what Friday to Sunday looked like:
Friday:
This day served as a reminder for why I no longer go out on Thursday night if I have to work on a Friday. Fortunately the openings started early that afternoon.
Maurice Doherty at The Science Centre
Embarrassing but true: when I walked into the gallery and only saw bottles of Barcardi Breezer on offer, I was a little bit excited. Alcopops are not permitted to urban brats normally, but I absolutely would have drained one had it been the only thing available. But despite the display, when I approached the bar there only seemed to be beer in the ice bucket. I had a Corona instead. Points for: cold beer and white wine, lime for my beer, real glasses, a selection of juice for people who don't want to start drinking at 4pm or for those of us still trying to replenish our fluid levels from the night before. Slightly weirded out by the server's latex gloves. 8 out of 10.
Callum Stirling at the Mitchell Library
Famous Grouse is a sponsor for GI and I thoroughly approve. J and I started with a whisky and ginger ale while we tried to make new conversation with people we had already seen at the previous opening and a couple of times the night before. I suggested that we just start a game to replace these chats as we will inevitably continue to run into the same people over the course of the weekend. Everyone laughs: everyone is too tired to think of any games. We resign ourselves to repeating our small talk endlessly. J and I move on to the much nicer whisky and ginger beer. He has another one. I think about it, but by the time I get to the bar, they're out. I decide that that's probably just fine. The opening's almost over anyway. 8 out of 10.
Catherine Yass and the CCA, Harald Turek at Intermedia
Dropping our bikes off back at J's and wolfing down a small and provisional dinner, we next arrive at the CCA. This is a major space with a chronic shortage of alcohol at their openings. They also have a proclivity for entering into dodgy booze sponsorship arrangements (pear cider is vomitous). How pleasantly surprised we were to once again be offered whisky and ginger beer and for there to still be quite a good amount left even though we'd arrived more than halfway through the opening. It wasn't spectacular, but it was decent. 7 out of 10.
Low Salt and The State: The alcohol wasn't free here, and my exhaustion was kicking in. We had a (very cheap) pint and went home to watch Whisky Galore which had just arrived by post. A happy coincidence.
Saturday:
A day lovely enough for me to wear my new sun dress. Albeit with tights and my cardigan firmly in place. I had started formulating my strategy days earlier, and it is precisely this level of planning that allowed me to attend nine openings in five hours, using no form of transportation other than my wee feet.
Jonathan Monk and Tramway
On the alcohol-front, it was a piss-poor start to the day. One harried server grumpily poured tiny glasses of sweaty wine in the face of a massive glut of people. No beer, no special drinks. The red was fine, perhaps even more full-bodied and drinkable than I would anticipate at an opening, but normally Tramway puts on a better effort. Unenthused. 5 out of 10.
To be Alert is to be Decorative
Run-of-the-mill crates of beer at the door of a dirty industrial space. Perfect. It's normally all I ever want. I also liked the way we were offered a beer before we even entered the space and the pulltab tops of the Tuborg. I wore mine like a ring for the rest of the evening and showed it to a lot of people who were not at all interested. 7 out of 10.
Ernst Caramelle at Mary Mary
We had four minutes to see this show. D, my companion for the evening, made us extend it to eight minutes when he saw the bottles of Baltika. In the end we needed 6.5 of them to neck the bottles and make a quick decision about the nature of the show. Sub-standard beer bottle opener, though. 8 out of 10.
Kalup Linzy at Washington Garcia
There were approximately 300,000 people in attendance for Kalup Linzy's performance that evening and we all liked it. It was in fact a minor miracle that allowed the Glasgow art scene to enjoy and laugh along with songs that were basically addressing complex identity politics, a pretty unfashionable subject matter around these parts. In homage to this miracle (and because I couldn't move) I didn't find the bar until after the show. At that point my already-jubilant mood was promoted to giddy levels by the glasses of rum and coke on offer. I love rum and coke; it reminds me of a lot of good things in my life. The young lad pouring the drinks looked like a boy I used to scoop ice cream with almost ten years ago (not a euphemism). I drank two while wadding in warm pools of nostalgia. I loved everything then. 9 out of 10.
Kate Davies and Neil Bickerton
At this point I was definitely drunk. Instead of drinking more, I looked carefully at the art work in a fashion I only adopt when I am trying to look more sober than I am. If I had wanted a beer, I think there would have been one, though. 7 out of 10.
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Melanie Gilligan at Transmission
Do you want to be my best friend? Because by the time I got to Transmission I was pretty sure I wanted to be yours. After hugging my former tutors, I proceeded to play bartender and open up bottles of beer for all my best friends (i.e. the people around me whose names I knew). When someone opted for wine instead, I was affronted. When a girl actually mistook me for the bartender and asked me for a beer, I politely pointed to the opener on the table in front of us. I then ran upstairs to the upper gallery where the art was located. It was a quiet and involved performance. I put on my extremely focused face again. I got bored and started to tell my friends about how my bike lock exploded earlier that day. I got shushed and left the gallery. I can't remember what kind of beer Transmission was serving, but there was a lot of it, even late in the evening, and apparently some wine, too. 7 out of 10.
Laurence Figgis and Sharon Thomas at Glasgow Print Studios
This place was serving Samuel Adams so the Americans were psyched. I imagine I would have started punching people in euphoric fits if someone had handed me a Labatt's 50 at that moment so I won't judge them. When all the non-Americans started complaining of the too-sweet taste I took the opportunity to tell them exactly how Canadians tend to feel about American beer. My friends appreciated my cultural insights. Additionally, I thought that the provision of rice cracker snacks and jelly babies was genius.8 out of 10.
Karen Cunningham, Luca Frei and Babak Ghazi at Project Room
The beer at the Project Room was free. Crazy. 7 out of 10.
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The night continued. I eventually took myself home when my conversation slipped well into the 'inappropriate' zone. I slept with all my clothes on.
Sunday:
I woke up early and perky because I was probably still drunk. I completed some needlework and drank a lot of water, went back to bed for a while and then grabbed some brunch. There were still openings on my itinerary. I ate a lot of carbs and pork products to prepare.
Katri Walker and Dani Marti
These kind folks had a wide variety of juice. That was really nice. They had beer too, but I just couldn't face it. Juice and crisps. That's everything I ever wanted right at that moment.8 out of 10.
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Ani Baronian and Nim Wunnam
This show had interesting looking cheese and crackers and grapes. It was a classic touch. They were also making cups of tea for their visitors which was lovely. My body was quickly shutting down and didn't want to ever accept anything into it again. Except maybe some sausage. and a bit of chocolate. But still, it was a good offering for a Sunday afternoon. No alcohol, but really no one was missing it.8 out of 10.
That was the end of GI for me. It was exhausting, it was informative, it was pretty fun. I never did find a really immersive magical spectacle of an opening -- not that the work itself wasn't magical (because some of it is), but the openings themselves didn't quite match it. There was rarely music, hardly ever food and while there was plenty to drink, a lot of the time it wasn't that special. I'm greedy during festivals: I want to be overwhelmed and amazed. Because of this, no one achieved a perfect score of 10 glasses this time. But there were some really solid efforts in the Provision of Free Booze and I would like to thank and commend the participants of Glasgow International for that.
Because I'm still tired, I haven't provided individual links to the shows and artists. Instead go to the GI website here to find out about times and locations. It's worth it even without the promise of free beer.
